Election? Oh, Right. We Also Voted on Transportation Taxes in California

There is some good election news today, believe it or not. Some of the transportation sales tax measures we’ve been writing about ad nauseum look like they will pass, even with some mail-in ballots still to be counted. The vote counts listed below are from the local county election sites, most of which were updated late last night.

L.A.’s Measure M is the big win here, garnering almost 70 percent of the vote (it needed 66.6666 percent to pass). This is huge, because Measure M allocates more than half of its revenue to transit, holding the promise of shifting the conversation on transportation in this car-reliant city.

“With the passing of Measure M, voters in Los Angeles County overwhelmingly supported the construction of a comprehensive, multi-modal transportation system in Southern California,” said Climate Resolve in a press release this morning. The measure will lead to “less traffic, cleaner air, and a reduction in climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions.”

In the Bay Area, Contra Costa’s Measure X, which had some innovative ideas for spending its revenue on Complete Streets, doesn’t look like it will pass. As of now it only has 62.54 percent of the vote. The 2/3 threshold is difficult to achieve, and in this case, like others, even though a majority of voters approved of the measure, it didn’t get enough votes.

Santa Clara County’s more highway-focused Measure B got a resounding yes, garnering 70.91 of the vote. It is likely to be out of the “no” zone—although, as Alameda and L.A. counties have learned in the past, those late votes could close the gap.

San Francisco’s twin J and K measures both needed only a simple majority to win, and J, which creates a fund for homelessness and transportation, did so with 66.4 percent of the vote. But K, which would have raised sales taxes to pay for J, only got 34.95 percent, essentially defeating both measures.

Reader Robert Prinz reminds us that Oakland also passed an infrastructure bond measure, Measure KK, with 82.4 percent of the vote. The bond will fund street fixes, including pavement, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, and traffic calming, as well as put some money towards public facilities and preserving affordable housing in this increasingly expensive city.

Meanwhile two transit agency measures in the Bay Area—BART’s Measure RR and AC Transit’s Measure C1, got high approvals from voters. RR is ahead with 70.86 percent of the vote, and AC Transit, which serves Alameda and Contra Costa counties with buses, got a whopping 81.9 percent of approval from voters to continue an existing funding measure.

Both Sacramento County’s Measure B and San Diego’s car-focused Measure A are losing, although Sacramento’s came close to passing. In Sacramento, 65.8 percent of the voters said yes—close to the threshold but not enough to win.

In San Diego, Measure A only won a slight majority; the 56.93 percent it has at this point isn’t near enough to pass the measure.

The state’s smaller counties had widely varying results:

Santa Cruz’s Measure D looks like it will pass. It’s very close, but currently over the threshold at 67.12 percent of the vote. It’s unclear how many ballots remain to be counted—but see the comment about Santa Clara above.

In Merced, voters said “Yes please,” passing Measure L by 69.15 percent, well ahead of the necessary 2/3 threshold. Stanislaus County gave even more solid approval to its Measure L, voting 70.57 percent to approve it.

Monterey County’s Measure X will win if the final count stays at 67.36 percent of the vote, which is just above the necessary threshold. Meanwhile the county also approved an anti-fracking measure, Z, with 55.8 percent of the local vote.

Humboldt County soundly defeated Measure U, which got more “no” votes than “yes votes: only 42.89 percent approved of the measure.

Placer County’s Measure M came close to winning, with 64 percent of the vote—but again, not quite enough.

San Luis Obispo and Ventura both defeated their transportation sales tax measures. SLO’s Measure J got only 65 percent of the vote, and Ventura’s highway-focused Measure AA got only a bare majority at 56.91 percent.

Corrections:
Measure X in Monterey will pass if the tally remains at 67.36% (66.67% is what was needed). Votes are still being counted however, and it is too close to call. Also Measure Z to ban fracking was for all of Monterey County, not just the city of Monterey.

Oakland’s Measure KK infrastructure bond was a big win last night as well. This will kick their Department of Transportation reorganization into high gear and help roll out high quality projects faster, even if the active transportation support on the state and federal level looks grim.

While Californians are waking up to the unexpected reality of President Elect Donald Trump, there are quite a few notable silver linings among city, county, and state election results. A few of these remain too close to call. Measure M, the L.A. County sales tax that would double Metro’s rail network, appears poised to pass […]

We continue our overview of what’s at stake in the big transit ballot initiatives next week with a look at California. Previous installments in this series examined Indianapolis, Seattle, Detroit, Atlanta, and Raleigh. All three of Streetsblog’s west coast editors contributed to this article: Melanie Curry of Streetsblog CA, Roger Rudick of Streetsblog SF, and […]

Among the many important issues to be decided in today’s election are a whole bunch of transportation funding measures. We have already covered many of them at Streetsblog, and there’s a quick summary of them at Streetsblog USA. All but one add 1/2 cents to local sales taxes for transportation purposes–but transportation is a wide […]